Recent Comments

Edward Snowden’s TED talk

Blog Archives

Pundits in The Hill, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Miami Herald, and mainstream media around the nation today are lamenting the 40-year-anniversary of Nixon’s declaration of the ‘war on drugs.’ Authors of these critiques include former President Jimmy Carter, former city of Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper and other luminaries. Events...

The long-term administration of delta-9-THC, the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana, is associated with decreased mortality in monkeys infected with the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a primate model of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) disease, according to in vivo experimental trial data published in the June issue of the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.
Investigators...

An employer may terminate an employee for his or her off-the-job marijuana use, even if the employee is authorized under state law to use cannabis medicinally, the Washington state Supreme Court ruled last week.
Off-the-job medical marijuana use does not bar firing: Wash. high court
via BusinessInsurance.com
The ruling stemmed from the case of a woman who...

Connecticut lawmakers moments ago voted 90 to 57 in favor of Senate Bill 1014, decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use by adults. Senate lawmakers had narrowly approved an amended version of the measure on Saturday; House lawmakers concurred with the Senate today, sending the measure to Democrat Gov. Dannel...

Connecticut: Immediate action is needed in the Nutmeg State. Members of the state Senate on Saturday narrowly approved legislation so that the adult possession of marijuana is reduced from a misdemeanor (punishable by one year in jail and a $1,000 fine) to an infraction, punishable by a fine, no jail time, and no criminal record. This measure would similarly reduce...

A coalition of United States House lawmakers — led by NORML 2011 national conference keynote speaker Jared Polis (D-CO) — today introduced a trio of measures in Congress to reform federal marijuana laws. The measures are:
The Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act;
The Small Business Banking Improvement Act of 2011; and
The Small Business Tax Equity Act...

A coalition of public interest advocacy groups filed suit today in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to compel the Obama administration to respond to a nine-year-old petition to reclassify marijuana under federal law.
The suit was filed by attorneys Joe Elford of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and Michael Kennedy...

Police prosecute over 850,000 Americans annually for violating state marijuana laws. The penalties for those busted and convicted vary greatly, ranging from the imposition of small fines to license revocation to potential incarceration. But for the citizens arrested in these five states, the ramifications of even a minor pot bust are likely to be...

Immediate action is needed in the following states:
Hawaii: Hawaii’s decade-plus medical marijuana law is under fire. The chairman of the Senate Health Committee, Sen. Josh Green (District 3, West Hawaii), is pushing for additional amendments to SB 1458 (which NORML already opposed) that would eliminate chronic pain, nausea, and Crohn’s disease as qualifying conditions...

It was just three years ago when President Obama (then candidate Obama) famously pledged to no longer use federal “Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws” regulating the physician authorized use of medical cannabis. And it was in the fall of 2009 that the administration issued the Ogden memorandum to federal prosecutors...